While I fail to come up with any enlightening thoughts on the weird lights phenomenon, I get replies from the Yule letters I sent out. It would get awfully complicated with sending each other letters at the same time, but the etiquette is that the younger one sends a reply first, which makes things easy since no one older than me sent a letter. It technically includes status as well, but Evan and Julian didn’t send one, their sisters including a line in their letters; Cyril, then, is the only one I have to reply to first.

So the rest of the holiday becomes a series of letters for me.

Even if it’s just words on a page, I hear their voices so clearly when I read each letter. Ellen has a lot to say in a disorganised way. The surprise at her brother’s present and thanks for mine (such kind words for handkerchiefs), and that she’s started reading one of the books I recommended and is loving it. She’s looking forward to the coming year, hopeful she can visit again and happy that Florence has invited her to join the handicrafts club—the two of them have apparently been sending letters to each other as well.

As expected, Florence’s letter to me is rather formal and almost like a writing assignment for class. The feeling I get is that she wrote it with a page beside her listing everything she wanted to include, loosely ordered by date and grouped by topic. Are the flowers doing well? Julian told her I embroidered the handkerchief for their mother and so she thanks me as it was well-received. Did I have a good Yuletide? She’s done all her homework for the holiday.

I smile as I read, knowing how hard she’s trying to be a proper lady endearing her to me. A lot of effort went into this. Realising that I sent Ellen a gift and not Florence, I put some effort in myself to embroider a bunch of the flowers she especially liked—buttercups—onto a handkerchief and include that in my reply.

From what the two of them included, Evan and Julian are well. Men of few words, huh?

Those being the first letters I get, they’re the first I reply to, doing my best to show an interest in what they’ve said and make what (little) I did sound interesting.

Violet’s letter arrives next. Short but sweet. “Thanks for having me, looking forward to spending the next year with you. All my best, love Violet.” (I mean, I’m paraphrasing, but only a little.)

For my reply, I tell her that I’m looking after Pinkie and ask her if her teddy bear has a name yet, and then add on everything else I can think to say. I would mention the weird lights, but I don’t really want something like that down in writing even if I do trust her.

Then, oh my goodness: Gwen. Oh her handwriting, it’s atrocious, and Lottie has included a “translation” so I actually know what she wrote. And there’s a drawing of me! She’s just so, so precious. As far as what she wrote says, she was a faerie in the play her Sunday school put on, and her friends at (regular) school came over for a party and they had a special strawberry shortbread cake (good for you, Lottie, she loved it), and a list of her Yule presents: some sweets, a dress, socks, and a hair clip. Of course, she thanks me for the handkerchief I left with Lottie too.

But that’s not all, a small package wrapped up in crinkly brown paper. I carefully tear it, glue keeping it closed, and reveal a wooden hoop with a coarse fabric stretched across it. On that fabric is a cross-stitch of a snowdrop. It’s… pretty good. You suggested that, didn’t you, Lottie? My mother always called me Snowdrop back then. I’m not crying, promise.

While I’d like to send a pony or something just as outlandish back, I make do with a sweet and simple letter, once again doing my best to make my handwriting look beautiful.

It’s a couple of days later that Cyril replies to my reply. I didn’t have much to say, but he manages to drag out, “Thanks for the letter. I’m well and enjoyed Yule. Hope the rest of the holidays are good for you,” to a full page. At least it’s written in a style that isn’t boring to read. Now, do I send a reply to his reply to my reply to his Yule letter?

Of course I do, there’s nothing else to keep me busy.

So I prattle on about a book I’ve been reading. We spoke a lot when he was here on the topic of books, and it has pushed me back into reading, sewing taking a back seat. I mean, that’s pretty natural for me. Sometimes I have a bunch of ideas of things to sew and so I sew like mad, and then I burn out and go back to reading; or the reverse happens and I find an author I just love, devouring book after book until I’m convinced that, actually, the author is absolute rubbish and couldn’t even write a birthday card. Does that make sense? I mean, like, getting irritated because every little flaw becomes a hundred times more noticeable and infuriating.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Okay, I’m going a little overboard. In conclusion, I’m reading more than sewing right now, only really sketching up ideas. It was a bit strange doing the buttercups for Florence because of that, but I have a lot of muscle memory and managed it without issue.

As far as my family goes, nothing big happens. Oh I chat with Clarice (or let her dress me up, do my makeup and style my hair), and talk to my mother, and I convince Joshua to let me read to him now and then or otherwise find something to do with him. He’s learnt some games from school which are like noughts and crosses, but with the sorts of changes to it that only schoolchildren can come up with—extra shapes, bigger grids, penalties if you lose. My father is around a lot since it’s a proper holiday period, but he can’t exactly throw me in the air and catch me like he used to. (Well, I don’t want to see if he can.) My vocabulary from all my reading makes me a good helper for crosswords and such, though, so I neatly perch on the arm of his armchair and offer what help I can. I’m sure he leaves some easy ones for me, but he wouldn’t be my father if he didn’t needlessly dote on me, would he?

There’s a lot of new faces around the manor to pitch in while the familiar faces are taking time off. Of note, Georgie’s little sister, who is just adorable. I’m finally at the age where I’m actually older than some of the servants. That said, Evie (short for Genevieve of all things) is unusually young for a maid at fourteen. Child labour, I know, but she’s only here for a handful of days and, from my (not-so-)subtle probing, it’s because her and Georgie’s parents wanted to visit relatives far north and she didn’t. I can sympathise, an awful lot of travelling to awkwardly sit around a bunch of old people. And my mother assures me that Evie is here as favour to Georgie, assigned a half-shift of laundry folding and nothing more.

Otherwise, it’s quiet.

The next big deal is New Year’s Day, the evening before not much of a family thing but still a drinking thing for adults of a younger age. The church holds a mass, so there is an actual bell that goes off at midnight, but we’re quite lax on religion these years. A lot of the servants do go, and I watch their lanterns bob through the dark night.

Oh, I should say there’s been light snow settling the last few days. We’re quite far south and so (most years) only see snow through January, a little at the end of December (like now) and some in February or March. Over a year, there’s maybe twenty days of actual snow falling and half that long with snow on the ground and, when it does settle, never all that deep. It might get in the way of going back to school, but I expect this patch to melt or the roads to otherwise be cleared.

When I was young, I looked forward to the snow days, numb fingers and toes from playing too long and a nose that wouldn’t stop running. These days, it’s beautiful to see (when actually settled and not just melting into a muddy slush) and that’s it for me.

Back to New Year’s Eve, my parents only let me stay up until midnight from when I was fourteen, yet I guess it’s a bit mean to send Joshua to bed when we’re all staying up, or maybe it’s to do with attending boarding school rather than age. Whatever the reason, he stays with us while we sit around, warm drinks and chatter about the last year. Of course, he nods off now and then. Bless him. When the distant church bells ring for midnight, we say a, “Happy New Year,” to each other, and it’s not long before we shuffle off to our beds. It’s hard staying up just to midnight when I’m normally in bed between nine and ten. No point staying up any later when it only gets colder with the fires out.

Come tomorrow, it’s a slow morning that leads into a feast of a lunch. Not just for us, the merriment from the servant’s hall echoing in the early afternoon—the food already cooked and served, and the dishes can soak for a day.

A reminder of the two worlds squashed into this house.

Oh I could walk in and sit down, and no one would say anything, but no one would say anything, a tense silence suffocating the good mood until I leave. Masters and servants, lords and ladies, a world split so cleanly into these groups that cannot mix. That Lottie indulges me is a miracle in of itself, a drop of oil stirred into water. Is that mayonnaise? I think ice cream as well…. Fat, um, suspended in water. That was part of Ellie’s chemistry lessons. What does soap do again?

Anyway, we’re at the end of Yuletide. No more celebrations of any kind left. The last day of Yuletide is called the Third (or Third Quarter) and has nothing to do with the date being the third of January. It’s a somewhat outdated term because of the calendars changing, but it is the “third quarter” of the working year and when a quarterly contract would need renewal. That includes the servants here, but I don’t have anything to do with that.

Then everything returns to normal and I’m soon enough packing my things for school once more. I say I’m packing, but I don’t have anything personal to bring but Pinkie and my dresses, and Georgie will pack my school things.

Oh, but, something’s just come to me! Emptying out my drawers, sifting through my wardrobe, I find a scarf buried deep in old clothes: the scarf Lottie knitted for me. A couple of dropped stitches, and she’s not quite followed the pattern properly in a few places, but it’s perfect.

When it comes time to leave, I must look strange, neck wrapped up in a baby blue scarf and a small green blanket over my lap. However, I’m oh so comfortable.

Back to school I go.